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Natural Bodybuilding Bulking

The only way to put on the maximum amount of muscle as quickly as you can is to make sure that you are eating a surplus of calories. What that means is that your input is more than your output. Having said that you should know that while most of the weight that you will gain will be in the form of muscle, some of it will be in the form of fat no matter how good your diet is.

It is easy to work out by working out the average amount of calories that you burn when training as well as working out your BMR (basic metabolic rate) which can be done with a simple calculation that you will find guidance on online. But the surplus calories will definitely be stored as fat there is no question about it however you can minimize the fat gain and maximize the muscle gain.

When planning your own specific bulk up diet you need to know what to expect from a bulk up cycle, let's cover how to design a bulk up diet. The first and obviously the most important consideration if you are training with a high intensity is the protein that you are getting. You should start off by increasing your protein intake to 1.5 grams of protein per pound bodyweight.

Therefore, if you weigh 200 lbs., you need to eat around 300 grams of protein per day. I have noticed that if I eat more than 40 grams of protein in one sitting I feel lethargic and have issues digesting the food. You can therefore; divide 300 by 40 and that will give you the amount of meals that you need to eat per day. In this example, the 200-lb bodybuilder will need to eat, around 7-8 meals per day spaced out with a minimum of 90 minutes in between meal and a maximum of 3 hours.

You can access a free protein calculator online as well to make sure that your figures are correct even though they will never be 100% accurate it will give you a ballpark figure to aim at. You main sources of protein should come from Chicken, Turkey, 93% Lean Red Meat, Tuna, Egg Whites and Salmon.

Increasing your carbohydrate intake to between 1.5-2 grams of carbs per pound of bodyweight is vitally important when creating the bulking diet. In order to gain muscle, a carbohydrate increase will be required to keep your energy levels high, and thus fuel your workouts, and in order to help shuttle the amino acids from your proteins into the muscle tissue (since carbohydrates increase insulin levels and insulin is necessary for the transport of the aminos into the muscle).

The key is to ensure that muscle mass is maximized as opposed to fat gain when consuming carbohydrates is to ensure that your intake of them is mostly from low glycemic (low digesting/released carbs) like brown rice, oatmeal and sweet potatoes.
It is important to note that you should limit the simple, higher glycemic carbs for after the workout when the body needs fast released carbs and proteins in order to quick start the recovery and re-building process and also to help refuel the energy stores (glycogen levels in the muscle and liver) that have been drained.

Also, ensure that you eat half of your carbohydrates split between the times that the body is most receptive to them, which is the morning time (first meal) and post workout time. So for instance, our hypothetical 200-lb bodybuilder who is starting his bulk up plan at 300 grams of carbs per day (bodyweight x 1.5), will split 150 grams (half of the daily requirement) between the morning meal and the post workout meal (so that comes to 75 grams of carbs).

The morning meal carbs will be complex low glycemic carbs while the post workout meal will be half simple and half complex). The remainder 150 grams will be split in the remainder meals. You will be able to find a free carb calculator online as well to make sure that these figures are accurate to suit your specific objectives.

You should always refrain from eating complex carbs after 6:30pm (unless your post workout meal comes after that time) as your insulin sensitivity (body's acceptance of the hormone insulin) goes down at night and therefore, one runs a higher risk of storing carbohydrate calories at night unless you train, in which case your insulin sensitivity is optimized.

Make sure that you have around 15-20 grams of fibrous carbohydrates, such as green beans or broccoli, at lunchtime and 15-20 grams more at dinnertime as these will help to keep your digestive tract clean and ready to accept new nutrients, thus maximizing nutrient utilization. The next vitally important part of a bulking diet is the fat content, both the quality and the quantity.

Increase your intake of good fats. Some fats are necessary to ensure good hormonal production and thus muscle growth. Eliminate all fats and see your testosterone levels take a dive. The body needs fats like the Omega Essential Fatty Acids in order to ensure proper hormonal production and brain function.

These oils are essential because the body cannot manufacture them and they help with many things like enhanced recovery due to reduced inflammation, enhanced nutrient partitioning due to their ability to neutralize enzymes necessary for fat storage (so this means more calories go toward muscle production and less to fat) and even help with enhancing your mood!

In order to get your good fats keep the essential fats at 3 tablespoons per day for guys and 1.5 for women in the form of flax seed oil, fish oils or extra virgin canned olive oil. I split my fats between my two low carbohydrate meals, which are meal 7 and 8. The reason I like to do this is because they eliminate my cravings for sweets at night that come as a result of the reduced carbohydrate intake at this time.

The last part of this article is going to be talking about your bulking training that you need to do in order to put on good quality muscle fast. It obviously depends on your level of experience and how long you have been training but the minimum should be from 3 days a week up to 6. Each workout session should be limited to no more than 60 minutes of intense weight training. More time in the gym and your testosterone levels will suffer.